Running Times, December 1995
The Hood To Coast Relay is a big race – bigger than you know. In the business world of sport, Hood to Coast (H2C) is real, authentic, and, in Portland, Oregon, it’s big-time serious. Last year, Nike head Phil Knight gave Alberto Salazar a black BMW convertible for leading, and anchoring, his team to victory.
Berto isn’t running this year. He ran 25 miles yesterday, his longest effort since winning the 1994 Comrades Marathon. “I am too slow right now,” he confides, so he’ll captain the team and manage one of the two vans the elite men’s team will be using.
Terry Williams is the squad leader in van 2. “He’s cool, calm and collected,” Alberto says of the one-time Oregon star. “The kind of guy you need in charge of a race like this.”
Berto is a maniac. I mean that in the nicest way. Berto is perhaps paranoid. Adidas, the dreaded, despised crosstown rival, is out to get him, and H2C is – I don’t mean to over emphasize the conflict – well, Salazar is at war. He manages to stay cool and burn bright at the same time.
Last year, the top runners averaged sub-5:00 miles for each of three five-mile legs. This year’s team must do better.
“We had some guys last year who didn’t run in the fours,” Berto notes.
“You killed them, didn’t you?,” I accuse.
“Well, they’re not back.”
At a pre-race pep rally, loudspeakers blare adrenaline-releasing tunes across the patio on Nike’s campus. “Two years ago, I was coerced into running H2C, and it really got me juiced up for the first time in ten years,” Salazar tells the assembled throng. “It may sound hokey, but our slogan, ‘Just Do It,’ is what this event is all about. Fitness for us is not just a business. We have a true love for competition. Our pride is on the line here.”
More than an race for elite athletes, H2C is all about participation. More than 500 Nike employees are involved, including guest teams from England, Germany and Italy. Twenty-eight Nike teams, such as “There’d Better Be A Finish Line” and “Lactic Acid Heads” will compete. “Six Buck Amazons & A Half-Dozen Little Boys” will contest the mixed corporate division, while “Not Tonight, Honey, I’m Running” goes after the women’s crown.
This is the first year the women’s race will be absolutely intense. Local running guru Bob Williams, another old Oregon star, was hired to put together an elite women’s team after rumors had reached Berto of a big adidas effort forthcoming. The sagacious Williams melded six top locals and Nike employees with imported ringers like ultra-legend Ann Trason and, my goodness, Selena Chemir, an altitude-trained Kenyan.
Berto has his own altitude-trained Kenyan; you begin to get some idea of how far these shoe wars could go if things got completely out of hand. Berto gathers his 12 guys for a final strategy session. “Mambu Baddu” is their name. That’s Swahili for “the best is yet to come.”
“Even in the middle of the night, there’s almost always somebody in front of you. You’ll see their flashlight.” Berto is worried his team might get lost. “I’m the king of getting lost,” he warns. “Don’t get lost. You make the wrong decision, and the race is over.”
Berto is concerned about that first downhill. The initial three legs drop an average of 1,000 to 1,400 feet. “Be conservative,” he tells the team. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see some big names. You never know who is going to show up. Don’t kill yourself on your first leg.” You know he expects you to throw yourself on a live grenade if that’s what it takes to win.
Each leg of this competition is essentially an 8k to 10k race. Ergo, there are 36 events, one right after another, and 815 runners in each event. With a dozen runners on a team, each runner runs three times: wave after wave, 20 runners at a time from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. There are approximately 49 wave starts, one every 15 minutes – in all, nearly 10,000 runners. Not to mention hundreds of support vans and the odd journalist.
Abnormally hot when the slower runners started earlier in the day, temps have cooled off by the time the fastest folks heat up the action at 7:30 p.m. Seems like with each wave, the runners become more slender. Muscle definition improves. They get a little shorter, too, to tell you the truth. Towards the later waves, you see fewer Walkmans.
The shoe companies haven’t even turned in their final rosters. John Gregorek is back for adidas. Nan Doak-Davis and Elaine Van Blunk are here, too. Rumors run rampant. This may be the biggest race of 1995 for the shoe companies. This may be the biggest race in adidas’s history, but only if they can win it.
By the way he’s acting, all juiced up, this could be the biggest race of Alberto’s life – bigger than Boston or New York – but only if he loses. He can’t really expect another important luxury vehicle for a victory. But if he loses, maybe they’ll take his name off the building on the Nike Campus.
The first leg drops 2,000 feet. Remember the opening scene in the Stephen King movie “The Shining,” starring Jack Nicholson – the car climbing and climbing and climbing and winding up and up through the drifts of snow? That’s the road they are running down. In a word, steep; forbidding even in the summer. The record for the first mile is 3:44, and the guy was holding back.
Leg 1 is a rite of passage for most teams. A majority of the folks falling down the mountainside are first-timers – all quads, no brains. Rare is the athlete who does this leg voluntarily. Some teams, seeking an early lead, have been known to sacrifice their first runner; this means the second and third athletes will have to run four legs.
Fifty yards into this 195-mile race, Nike takes the lead. Fast Eddy Hellebuyck clocks a sub-4 opener. He sets a Leg 1 record, averaging 4:01:58 for 5.6 miles. At 5 feet, 2 inches, 105 pounds, the 2:11 marathoner is shaped like a water bug. “I am not a wimp,” the smiling Eddy tells me, after building the biggest lead coming off the hill anybody has ever seen.
The difference in the race this year may simply come down to Eddy H. Last year, the Nike and adidas teams were neck and neck all the way into Portland. This year, we’re concerned Eddy might have put the race way out of reach really early. There’s some disappointment in the air. Berto doesn’t notice.
“It’s not nearly the way it was, not as intense,” Jon Sinclair complains. The Nike team is waiting for a counterstrike that doesn’t seem to be coming its way.
I see Dave Murphy, manager of adidas’s “Rolling Thunder,” – trust me, there’s some backstory to that name – looking calm. “We’re gonna run hard all the way,” he says, ever the battler. He’s surprised Berto’s not running. I tell him why, ‘he’s too slow to make his own team,‘ and I watch Murphy’s Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat.
After the initial leg, athletes can’t run the tangent. Both shoe-company teams are assessed one foul for crossing the yellow line on State Highway 26, which isn’t closed to traffic for the race. You gotta be crazy just to drive on Highway 26. One more foul, and Nike is out of the race. Try explaining that to Knight.
Every five miles or so, at the relay exchange points, the traffic is like the exit of a ball game, or the state fair emptying out. Some 2,200 vans are jockeying for position. The van drivers could easily be the most valuable members of the relay squads. They’re like the bass players in a rock-and-roll band.
Salazar is riding shotgun, reading the map, hollering advice and encouragement out the window, giving directions, actually hopping out of the van at particularly obscure turns. Can’t get lost. Whenever we get into trouble, Salazar flashes his Big Berto smile, and volunteers fall all over themselves to see how they can help. Hang around him long enough, you tend to forget he’s a celebrity.
There’s so much that can go wrong in an event like this. You could arrive too late; you could get lost; you could be a stranger in a strange land. In the dark.
It’s 10:30 p.m. Van 2 needs a break, so Berto phones home. “Molly, hi. Look, some guys are going to come over and crash. (Pause.) Nine. (Pause.) I just found out about it myself. (Pause.) Sorry. Just let them in.”
After seven legs, Nike’s lead is so great, the major worry now is going off course. Some of the guys are without their eyeglasses. The markings are not so clear as a man running 4:40 miles – in the night through foreign territory – might like.
Sinclair, his 38-year-old head shaved like Mr. Clean’s, explains a problem about pacing yourself in the dark. “I thought I was running much faster. You have no idea how fast you’re going. I thought I was attacking it. You never know. There is absolutely no way to judge.”
These guys are caffeine-inspired, pounding the van roof and screaming support. It’s the one race of the year in which they don’t compete against one another. The whole time someone is running, everybody is screaming for him. Together, they start telling stories about how Dan Held crushed Gregorek right here last year. “He’s got The Face on!,” a voice yells.
“There is a performance aspect here,” the event’s founder, Bob Foote, explains. “You are operating on stage amongst a dozen of your peers. You don’t want to show any weakness. The current strategy is, you run every leg as hard as you can.”
The voice inside you that whispers you should quit is drowned out by the cheers of your eleven teammates. “You know that little voice in your head?” Sinclair asks. “Mine has a loudspeaker.”
“You’re racing here,” offers Peter Fonseca, a 2:11 marathoner from Canada. “Like I’m not even thinking about adidas. You’re just drilling along, kinda in your own world out there. Which is good. You know, that sensation you’re crankin’ along. Feels good, being alone, out in the middle of nowhere.”
After the first dozen legs, adidas’s women are three minutes ahead of Nike’s, and the Nike men are about nine minutes ahead of the adidas men. I notice Hellebuyck grimace after finishing his second leg. “Boy, my legs are screwed up now.”
“This race brings out all your weaknesses,” Sinclair points out.
“And all your strengths,” Lewis adds.
“Everything you have that’s a problem will hurt for sure in this race,” continues Sinclair. “The first leg, it’s annoying. The second leg, you’re in trouble. Third leg, you’re just hoping to avoid disaster.”
In the middle of the dark Oregon night, way, way out in the woods, John Kipkoskei is running 4:36 pace and smiling. If you’re anybody but the elite team, the elite team is chasing you. You’re road kill, waiting to happen. You’re out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and suddenly all you hear is “pitter patter, pitter patter,” soft footsteps getting louder and louder. World class comes out of the darkness, a flashlight and reflective vest moving through the black like The Invisible Man.
“We may not be the first team to the beach,” Lewis says, noting the ten-hour handicap surrendered to the slower squads.
“It’s all right,” Held responds.
“It’s not all right,” Lewis answers angrily. “I want to be there first.”
It’s 1:50 a.m. I’m in the lead car now. “Somebody from adidas had to blow up,” driver, H2C board member and raconteur Gregory Miller surmises. Suddenly Nike’s 9-minute lead is rumored to be 20 minutes at 2:50 a.m. Maybe adidas got lost. Or run over. Or kidnapped by Bigfoot.
In the village of Mist, the fog rolls in, Nike builds an ever-bigger lead. It’s 6:30 a.m. “Oh, man, I’m happy,” Fast Eddy explains upon completing his final leg. Bored by the size of their lead, the Nike team members begin competing among themselves to see who can log the fastest legs or best their projected times by the greatest margin. The race is now a time trial.
“You don’t want to be the guy who lets his team down,” says Sinclair. “I went as hard as I could go.”
At 8:20 a.m., Nike is supposedly 40 minutes ahead of the adidas squad. Rolling along Lewis and Clark Road to the coastal resort town of Seaside, Alberto begins to relax, ceases to look like Jack Nicholson. After 195 miles, there had damn well better be a finish line.
“You know the routine,” Salazar announces. “We all finish together.” Half the guys don’t know the routine. They’re stiff and sore. Lewis can’t find his shirt; Held locates his hat (it was backward on his head); Sinclair is calm. Poor Fonseca: he can hardly move, and he’s looking out the window at 5:00 pace.
“Brad’ll park the van the first place he can,” Berto explains, “and we’ll all run in with Tom.”
You should see the look on Fonseca’s face.
There’s a vacant lot, and we’ve stopped, and before I know it, I’m the only guy in the van. At Nike, even the drivers are fast.
The event was 3.3 miles longer than last year’s, yet Nike clocked a race-record 15:44:55, nearly an hour in front of “Rolling Thunder’s” 16:46:26. [Two decades later, that record stands.]
Murphy’s revenge is a record-breaking 19:04:19 performance by the women’s division of “Rolling Thunder.” Nike’s elite women finish more than 25 minutes later. Nike went from kicking butt last year to kissing your sister this year. It’s a tie, really. Nike men win, and adidas women win. It’s no fault of Berto. Williams got the world’s only slow Kenyan to run on his team.
“My impression of the H2C?” Williams asks. “What I thought it was? A demanding endurance event. Demanding, because of sleep deprivation. Endurance, because everybody runs 15 miles as hard as they can. With five hours of recovery. And some food; maybe not enough nutritious food.
“I was surprised, our women, even though we knew we were getting beat, decided early on they were not going to recognize that, but hope like hell… Hope the adidas van would either run off the course or they’d get lost. Someone would get bad blisters, and they couldn’t run. Someone would get sick and couldn’t run. They’d get hurt or injured, and they’d have to flip-flop their runners. And they’d lose time, and we’d pick up the pace and catch them. And that’s the basis by which we raced.
“And we raced well,” Williams said. “We continued to compete against ourselves, hoping something would happen to them and we’d catch up somewhere along the line. And even though we knew at the very end we couldn’t, we still ran hard. Except for one athlete who found she couldn’t do it.”
In other words, Selena Chemir isn’t an H2C runner, at least not on the first trip.
“Her first leg at night, she did not give up any time on Nan Doak-Davis, who just hammered,” explains Williams. “She gained maybe 2 seconds. After five hours of sleeping and very little food, she lost a little bit of oomph for Leg 2, then she lost a helluva lot after that. Even if Selena had run up to our expectations, adidas still would’ve beat us by 14 minutes.”
“Would you run again?” I ask Fonseca.
“It would have to be a long-term decision,” he says. “Like, if I was thinking about it right now, I’d say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll do it.’ And then you’d have to catch me really short term. Like a few days before. ‘Peter, you up?’ and without thinking, I’d say, ‘Yes!’ and I’d be back.
“But don’t ask me after a marathon or some other race. It’s better to be right on the moment than to be thinking about the race three months before. You don’t want to dwell on H2C. If a workout’s going great, you’re loving it. If a workout’s going crappy, you’re thinking, ‘I’m never going to do that H2C thing again.’
“Once you start H2C, it’s fine,” Fonseca continues. “This was my first time. Actually, my first marathon was probably my best marathon for quite a few years. Best to go in naïve about the event, as far as the pain you are going to go through, the no sleep, sitting in a cramped van for so many hours. The thing is, you are sitting in there with some really great guys; that’s the special part about it, you know – the camaraderie.
“If it wasn’t for that, if you factor out those guys, you’re thinking, ‘This is hellish; I don’t know if I’d do this again.’ If you factor in the people I ran with, then I’d say, ‘I’d do it for the rest of my life.’ That’s how I feel about the event,” Fonseca concluded.
Sinclair heads for the airport. “It’s going to take a while to get over this.”
The best is yet to come, I remind him and start looking for a ride home.